After Darrell Simester, then 30, went missing on vacation at a south Wales seaside resort in Aug. 2000, his family didn’t see him again for almost 13 years. They never gave up trying to find the “vulnerable” and “timid” Simester — and their perseverance eventually paid off. In March 2013, an anonymous tip-off led Simester’s family to a two-berth caravan in a stable yard just outside Cardiff, Wales’s capital city. There they found him, now aged 43, in dirty, torn clothes and with teeth missing – but otherwise okay.

Simester’s case sparked a major police operation codenamed Operation Imperial. In police raids in September, two other men (one Polish, one British) were also found living in poor conditions at or near the same site where Simester had been found. Three men have subsequently been arrested and released on bail, all charged with false imprisonment, conspiracy to hold a person in…

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Largely overlooked yesterday was the good news that Cory Booker was elected to the US Senate from New Jersey. I have been impressed with him for some time now. He tried to live on stamps for one week to see the effects. I wish all the members of Congress were required to try to do that before they vote on a reduction of food stamp benefits. Moments ago on CNN, Senator-elect Booker quoted an old saying as to how he intended to conduct himself in the Senate, “if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”

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Defense and prosecution attorneys in the James Holmes murder trial continued their pre-trial scuffle Thursday with testimony about whether statements made without a lawyer could be admissible in court.

One defense attorney testified that she had told Police Chief Craig Appel that police could not question Holmes about explosives found in his apartment, but that the police questioned Holmes anyway without a lawyer present, the Associated Press reports.

Chief Appel testified that he knew that two lawyers wanted to see Holmes, but told the attorneys they would have to wait until their client was transferred to another jail. He said that Holmes had asked for a lawyer but didn’t see one until 12 hours later.

Prosecutors argued that police had to question Holmes about the explosives because they were so dangerous they could have blown up building in the surrounding area. Police said that the explosives were unlike anything…

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Former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden said he entered Russia without any secret NSA files, according to a new interview in the New York Times.

The 30-year-old whistleblower who leaked classified documents on the U.S.’s surveillance of phone and online communications in June said he handed over all documents to journalists who he met in Hong Kong before fleeing to Russia and kept no copies for himself “because it wouldn’t serve the public interest” to do so.

“There’s a zero percent chance the Russians or Chinese have received any documents,” he told the Times in an interview that took place over several days last week through encrypted online communication.

Snowden said he was able to secure the stolen files from Chinese spies because he knows the limitations of Chinese intelligence operations. While serving as a NSA contractor, he targeted Chinese intelligence and taught a course on Chinese cyber counterintelligence.